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Grand Junction breaks ground for new police, fire facilities

Architects’ renderings of a new Grand Junction police headquarters and 911 center are scrutinized Monday by Grand Junction resident Harry Hagaman, a retired Marine brigadier general, during groundbreaking ceremonies. The facility will be built in a vacant lot in the 500 block between Ute and Pitkin avenues. The $35 million project includes renovation of the police headquarters and the main fire station for use by the Fire Department.

Before long, Grand Junction’s cramped police and fire headquarters will be a distant memory. Local officials took a symbolic step forward Monday, plunging gold-painted shovels into the dirt on the site of the future police station and 911 center.

“This is marking the culmination of a multi-year event,” Grand Junction Mayor Teresa Coons said to the crowd.

By the summer of 2012, a new police station and 911 center will occupy the vacant lot in the 500 block between Ute and Pitkin avenues.

The $35 million project will be paid for using certificates of participation, with the city making $2.2 million annual payments for 30 years. Fees from 911 services will cover $500,000 a year.

The project includes remodeling the current police station, which will be used for fire administration officials. The current fire station will be expanded to include sleeping quarters, a gym and an area for firefighters to separate contaminated gear.

Future phases will include constructing fire stations within the city’s more populated outer reaches.

Shaw Construction is working as the contractor on the project. Blythe Group + co. is the project’s architect. Both are Grand Junction companies and were recruited to work on the project during a previous attempt to gain financing for the project.

In 2008, voters rejected a $90 million sales tax increase to foot the bill for a public safety center plan

Plans for this public safety center have been pared back from the 2008 designs.